Our Weekend with Peas and Carrots

We had a wonderful weekend providing respite care for Peas and Carrots. Peas was a sweet, smart and lively 3 year old girl. Her "baby" brother, Carrots, was laid-back, curious and loved to give hugs. Both had smiles that could light up a room!

As we were walking out to the car to meet them Peas exclaimed (because there wasn't much she said softly), "I'm going to make your doggie smile!". Despite her enthusiasm for the idea of Rudy, we quickly found out that she was not too thrilled with the actual reality of him. Friday night was spent playing with all sorts of toys with the piano being her favorite.  And trying to convince her that Rudy was nice and should be allowed inside.

Carrots settled right in and quickly found his favorite toy- a wooden horse scooter. He only wanted to get off it when Rudy would walk by. Then he would eject himself hoping for a kiss or two! This really helped show Peas that all Rudy wanted was a little loving.  Here he is mid-ejection!

Friday night bedtime couldn't be described as smooth.  But if the worst of it was a massive apple juice spill that covered Carrots, me and our entire kitchen, it definitely could have been a lot worse!

Saturday started with pancakes for breakfast (bigger hit than we knew) and some playtime on our swingset (another big hit).  After realizing the awesomeness of easily adjustable carseats,  we headed to the park for a birthday party.  I was a bit nervous about heading out in public.  Would the kids listen to us?  Would people stare at our multi-racial family?  Was Peas' hair acceptably styled?  And it turned out to be overly positive!  The kids were wonderful.  There were no weird reactions or stares or comments about Peas' hair!  All of us had a great time at the birthday party and there were no meltdowns, even when the balloon flew into the clouds!

After a solid nap, we headed down to our neighborhood block party.  Yes, we took the kids to two parties in one day!  We figured if we tired them out, it would ensure that everyone got a good night sleep.  The party had the potential to be quite overwhelming since there were a few hundred people in attendance.  But Carrots discovered he loved taking Kevin's hat!  And Peas helped me run a few games for the kids!

Then Peas met a very special friend playing egg toss.  She stayed glued to her all night dancing to the band, drawing pictures with sidewalk chalk, and swinging to the clouds!  And they had a blast!

Bedtime Saturday night was MUCH easier probably because they had no energy left.  Towards the end of the block party, Peas said "I just want to go home" to which we responded "Let's go!".  We were pretty proud to have both kids asleep within 30 minutes without any tears!  And we all had a great night of sleep!

On Sunday morning, Kevin earned quite a few brownie points by getting up early with Carrots.  He ended up driving him around town to get him to sleep for another hour while he filled the car up with gas and visited a  bakery.  Peas and I were very happy to wake up to fresh cinnamon rolls.  Then we invited Peas' new BFF from the block party to join us for a trip to the park, where we met up with a friend of Carrots and his dad.  That's right, we coordinated dual play dates!  Both kids were still pretty pooped from the night before, so the party didn't last long.  Carrots even fell asleep in the swing!

 
But we did make some great progress on the Rudy front with Peas.  She very often reminded us "That is your doggie.".  And she even made up a song about him!  It went a like this:

Rudy is so nice, nice, nice, nice.

He is very soft.

He gives lots of kisses.

Rudy is nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice!

Very nice! 

Whew!  I'm impressed if you made this far!  All in all, our first 48 hours as foster parents was a success.  We are looking forward to our next foster parenting adventure.  After a few full nights of sleep, that is!

Stay tuned:  The best part of the weekend is yet to come!